I followed the last american election - Obama vs Romney.
Romney was aggressively anti-minorities (and he expoused blatantly false economic ideas) - and he still got 49% of the american votes.

Believing that, in a country such as this, a russian captain would not hurt the audience appeal of a star trek series, is wishful thinking.

Since it takes far fewer viewers to keep a show on the air nowadays, I don't think it would be a problem. We had two series that lasted seven years respectively with black and women captains. Hell, the two shortest running Trek series had white, male American captains.

These far fewer viewers will become fewer still if, from the start, the show appeals to only 51% of the populace, 49% being written off.